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Comment by jeffbee | Hacker News Reader

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Yes, but more likely the major naval powers would just ignore you unless you were doing something that specifically angered them (fugitives, human trafficking, piracy, etc).

Otherwise I think they'd be happy to let you sit there on your leaky little scurvy raft in international waters as long as you want. Piracy is a much bigger problem if you have anything valuable and aren't just sea hobos, but it's more likely the weather is gonna mess you up first.

> The long-wished-for Libertarian paradise where barbers don't have licenses and you can marry an 8-year-old is going to have to be brought about on dry land.

This barb has me chuckling.

Why does a barber need a license?

There used to be a lot more cleanliness issues with barber shops where they'd transmit various parasites and diseases. When the licensing and inspections were implemented these problems largely went away.

> If you're flying some made-up flag on the high seas there is no reason that the navy of some actual county can't just roll up and sink your stupid dinghy.

No, thats silly.

There are lots of tiny nations, with no ability to defend themselves, but we don't see them getting nuked for no reason.

The idea that just because some people decided to go live on a boat somewhere, that this means that nation states are just going to start murdering people, is just a made up story, in the minds of people who just want to fantasize about killing people who they disagree with politically.

Nation states would be harmed very significantly, on the political side, if they just started blowing up ships, for no reason, lived in by people who just want to live in the ocean somewhere.

The world is not some RPG civilizations game, where an unclaimed NPC boat, is going to be "taken over" for its resources. There are serious political ramifications, to this military fantasy that people have, about houseboats getting invaded.

> If you're flying some made-up flag on the high seas there is no reason that the navy of some actual county can't just roll up and sink your stupid dinghy.

There are two. On the level of rights and legality, there's non-agression principle. On the level of realpolitik, there's you being prepared to sink them first.

The NAP is a fiction made up by American libertarians. It is not a doctrine adhered to by the Russian navy.

The reality of the matter is that any vessel not flying a real flag enjoys no standing whatsoever in the laws or treaties of the seas. Freedom of navigation is a right of states, not individuals. If you are not a state or under the protection of a state (a real one, not a comic book one) then you do not have the right to navigate the high seas.

Which is why so many ships sail under the flags of states with the ability to protect them, like the USA, Great Britain, Russia or China, and not Panama, Liberia or Bolivia.

If you sink a ship registered in Panama, you have made war against Panama and transitively against the United States of America and all other signatories of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance.

If say Russia sinks a Bolivian boat, there are plenty of other major nations with navies that will get upset about it just because they want to keep the Russians in check. Not because they care about Bolivia. If the Russian navy sinks some stateless seasteading anarchists, nobody is going to give a crap.

> The NAP is a fiction made up by American libertarians.

That's true, but that's also true for any other human doctrine, from human rights to US constitution, so I don't see how it makes it any less important.

> It is not a doctrine adhered to by the Russian navy.

The beauty of it is, it doesn't have to be.

> There are two. On the level of rights and legality, there's non-agression principle. On the level of realpolitik, there's you being prepared to sink them first.

LOL. I'm pretty sure that even possessing anything close to the capability to sink a modern warship (let alone using it) will doom any seasteading fantasy through a concentrated application of unwanted attention.

Depends on how that capability is setup, I imagine. "We have remotely operated mines at a 5nm radius and HMGs for close-in anti-boat defence" would be enough to deter anyone without anti-ship missiles, but still more than enough to kill a modern warship that comes too close. (Modern warships are generally not stupid enough to sail into hostile mines, however)

I've got no idea how you'd be able to maintain a perimeter of mines in the open ocean, though.

> Depends on how that capability is setup, I imagine. "We have remotely operated mines at a 5nm radius and HMGs for close-in anti-boat defence" would be enough to deter anyone without anti-ship missiles, but still more than enough to kill a modern warship that comes too close. (Modern warships are generally not stupid enough to sail into hostile mines, however)

That doesn't make sense. A modern warship would have anti-ship missiles or aircraft with ranges far greater than 5nm that could fly right over those mines.

Also, such a defense doesn't protect against a blockade, which would allow the seastead to be defeated without firing a shot. I'd imagine pretty much all conceivable implementations would be utterly dependent on trade for basic and not-so-basic supplies. Another threat: a commandeered supply ship loaded up with hostile marines and law enforcement.

I flagged this comment because it is hysterical and does not contribute to the high-quality discourse this site is known for

>Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

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